xliv LIFE OF DR. ROLLESTON. 



own book. Though he did not live to complete this under- 

 taking, it has not been neglected ; his plans are being carried 

 out by his former pupil and demonstrator Mr. W. Hatchett 

 Jackson, who looks to completing the work in its new form 

 in 1885, and who in the meantime has contributed several 

 characteristic touches to the present memoir. 



Of Rolleston's style as a medical writer, no more characteristic 

 specimen can be seen than the Harveian Oration which he was 

 called upon by the College of Physicians to deliver in 1873. 

 Combining anatomist and scholar as he did. he was able to make 

 this, not a mere panegyric or medical thesis, but a contribution 

 to scientific history, elucidating for the first time various points 

 in the great discoverer's career, and his relation to contem- 

 poraries and rivals. This oration, which attracted great atten- 

 tion among the Faculty, is here reprinted (Art. xli), and in its 

 latter pages the non-professional reader will be interested to 

 find stated Harvey's position as the real demonstrator of the 

 circulation, working by methods so new that he sometimes not 

 unreasonably feared he should set all men against him. The 

 examination of contemporary records made by Rolleston for 

 this purpose has added also to our biographical knowledge of 

 Harvey, whose college life and philosophical thought have much 

 of that diffused interest which genius throws beyond the limits 

 of its actual path. 



Wide as was the main work of Rolleston's life,, it was not in 

 his character to keep within its limits. Where discursive thought 

 led him into adjacent subjects, he would follow the track; and 

 this he did on principle, holding that his mind was the better for 

 its many-sidedness. Indeed he had a stock formula to express 

 contempt for a man who was only classical or only scientific — 

 1 Stupid fool, he can only do one thing.' Though he doubtless 

 lost much force by thus expending himself in too many direc- 

 tions, there must be set against this his gain by making one 

 thing bear on another. Talking once to his present biographer 

 of the way in which he found his anatomy and classics and 

 antiquarian research converge on the study of man, he illus- 



